for the first time in I don't know HOW LONG...

[ProdigalJunkMail]

I see a small sunspot cluster...

http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/realtime/mdi_igr/1024/latest.html

Lower right quadrant...

sP

[tekisui]

1. What does that mean?

[The Straight Story]

2. The sun has the swine flu

:)

[Tangerine LaBamba]

6. OK,

Diet Coke out my nose, and it's all your fault .............

:toast:

[The Straight Story]

8. JUST diet coke? I got some Vodka you could mix it with

Although that really burns coming out the nose. Don't ask how I know... :)

[Tangerine LaBamba]

10. I'm loaded up with opiates -

vodka would be a bad mix, I'm told.

I hate these "either-or" situations. I just know they're lying to me ........................

(Once, when we were involved a massive throwing up session after a night on the town in Lima drinking pisco, I saw a whole shrimp come out my best boy buddy's nose, but I'd take the shrimp over the vodka - ouch! - any day. Like spilling rubbing alcohol in your lap when you're naked? Don't ask how I know ..........)

[ProdigalJunkMail]

9. i, fortunately, was not drinking at the time n/t

[Tangerine LaBamba]

13. Lucky, dry you ...........

But that was so damn funny, I just recommended it for a DUzy. Very quick, very clever. The best....................

[uppityperson]

17. THANK YOU for doing my request, special for you. Would you please add

your planet picture thing to my thread gathering swine flu stuff together? HINI flu thread needs it.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=5561804&mesg_id=5561804

ps. thank you for this post

[Pithy]

3. It means the sun's active again

after a REEEEALLY long time of being abnormally still and quiet. This is good news.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

7. it has been very eerie to check that page day after day

and see that yellow-orange field of hydrogen and no little pock-marks on it. i am GLAD the sun is waking up...at least i hope this is not a fluke...

sP

[Tangerine LaBamba]

11. Why did it go so quiet?

Is it cyclical, do you know? Has this happened before, and what are the ramifications of such a slumber?

Now, things on this planet will get really interesting. I love sunspots, solar flares, all of it ......................

[ProdigalJunkMail]

14. well there is an approximately 11 year solar cycle

and during the lows of that cycle sunspots quiet down...but this has been an unusually long dry spell. i have no idea the ramifications of such a long time at the minimum but IIRC the same sort of thing happened a couple hundred years back...but my memory ain't what it used to be.

hopefully we can get us a solar-science-type here to give us some good info...

sP

[TankLV]

28. Ran out of Jimmy Dean sausages, probably...

[Are_grits_groceries]

4. It's been way weird.

And the scientists are talking about a megastorm coming. Maybe that's what has the Repubs spinning.

And the earth's magnetic field has been acting up. Everything is haywire.

[KittyWampus]

12. Can you point us in the direction of a good website that discusses these issue

from an empirical standpoint?

[ProdigalJunkMail]

15. here is some basic info on the sun

http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/SunspotCycle.shtml

will look for more sunspot specific stuff in a bit...

sP

[ProdigalJunkMail]

18. a little related to global climate...

http://www.climatescienceinternational.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=31:vanishing-sunspots-prelude-to-global-cooling&catid=1:latest

sP

[KittyWampus]

27. thanks, that was very kind of you

[valerief]

19. Maybe the poles are gonna reverse. That happens every so often, doesn't it? nt

[happyslug]

23. Rate varies over time, but at present rate of decline will end by 4000 AD

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geomagnetic_reversal

Now the reversal last occurred 780,000 years ago, but averages a reversal once every 250,000 years. While the Average is 250,000 years, each period differs from millions of years to sometime just a few years. All of the reversal follow a mathematical principal know as the "Levy Principal" for non-negative random variables.

For more on the Levy Principal see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A9vy_distribution

While at present rate of Decline, the current will end by 4000 AD, it is believed that sometime before that date it will accelerate to a stop and reverse and start the whole system of decline again. This is believed to be the pattern for the last 1/2 billion years that the earth has had a surface. No one knows when, through they are people claiming the Mayans predicted this to occur in 2012 (Check the net, you will find them). The problem with this while the Mayan Calendar ends in 2012, that is based on observation of the precession of the earth, a 26,000 year cycle where the earth tilts so that what we call the North Star today, ceases to be true north, then the tile reverses till the North Star is close to being True North. That is all the Mayans apparently wanted to do when they set up their Calendar and did so with the use of shorter "counts" based on 13, 20 and 260 days. 13 and 20 where "lucky" numbers to the Mayans, 260 days is roughly the average time period of human gestation dating from the first missed period (We in the West, date pregnancy from the last period so we use 280 days instead of 260 days). For more see the citations below on the Mayan calendar.

One of the problems with Wikipedia is sometimes the articles are NOT the best, the statements that the last reversal was 780,000 years ago but the average is 250,000 years is NOT on the Wikipedia entry for Reversal, but the Wikipedia entry on the Magnetic Poles themselves:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth%27s_magnetic_field

For more on the Mayan calendar:
http://planetpapp.com/br21december2012/
http://www.greatdreams.com/2012.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_calendar

[konnichi wa]

5. A Pox on the sun?

:scared:

[ProdigalJunkMail]

16. might have gotten excited for nothing

it appears that this small cluster is related (based on polarity) to solar cycle 23 (old cycle) and may not indicate a new trend...

http://www.spaceweather.com/

sP

[uppityperson]

20. What about the bits at 3:15 and 9:45?

or was 3:15 what you meant? I also see a 4:30 dot. Are any of those sunspots?

[ProdigalJunkMail]

21. the bits at 3:15 are the sunspot cluster

however, the stuff at the other two locations appear to be camera related as they are always there...burned pixels or something like that...

sP

[uppityperson]

22. thanks. This low sunspot thing is odd. I know it happens, but still is odd.

[happyslug]

24. Solar sunspots occurred even during the Maunder Minimum

Thus one sunspot is nothing, the issue will the number of sunspots now start to increase as it normally does (and should have started last October?).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maunder_minimum

During one 30-year period within the Maunder Minimum, astronomers observed only about 50 sunspots, as opposed to a more typical 40,000–50,000 spots in modern times.

For more see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_minimum

List of Cycles:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_solar_cycles

It has been noticed that sunspots from a dying solar cycle tend to appear near the solar equator whereas spots from a new cycle tend to appear near to the solar poles.

Thus that this is nearer the poles then the Equator indicates it may be the product of the new cycle or it may just be a one shot, only time till tell.

[happyslug]

25. Talked about two days ago

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x194629

[rucky]

26. Do you get to name it?

[TankLV]

29. That's what happens when you stare into the sun...

and here you probably thought masturbation would cause you go go blind...!!!